Category Archives: Mexico

El Día de la Revolución, or Revolution Day in Mexico, is celebrated on the third Monday of November although the first shots of the revolution were fired on November 18th. It is a major holiday in Mexico and everyone loves a parade! Last year we saw the parade in Melaque; this year we saw it in Barra de Navidad.

We had been told the parade started at 9; unfortunately it had started at 8. So we missed most of the children dressed in period costume. But we did enjoy the floats and action we did get to see.

One of the most fun was the “beer dance” by the women in traditional outfits. And the soccer team created several different styles of pyramids in the street!

The finale was a group of horses ridden by Mexicans in their traditional dress. A great parade for such a small community!

This was our first Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico. We had wanted to experience it since we first came to Mexico. But the timing never seemed to match our return to our sailboat. Now that we are landlubbers we decided this was the year to see it.

At first we thought it was just a more elaborate Halloween. But the more time we have spent in Mexico we came to understand that it is a celebration of the life of family and friends that have departed. Two days are set aside to pray for and to support their departed’s spiritual journey. Altars are created showing pictures of the departed and many of their favourite things including food, drink, activities, entertainment and pets! We were touched by the display for Pedro, a cowboy whose life’s story was written on the altar along with the portrait of his horse.

Catrina’s are very popular to use in the altars. These female skeletons are dress-up with fancy clothes and especially hats. We enjoyed seeing

We particularly liked this display with the gentlemen playing cards with the dog looking on.

We arrived in Barra de Navidad after about 2 weeks of traveling. We were happy to get here although it is hot and humid. The air temperature is only 32C but the humidity makes it feel like 42C. We are happy that our rental house, Casa Sol, has a lovely swimming pool! Casa Sol is on the second canal so we are exploring our new neighbourhood. We have not spent much time in this part of Barra before so it was fun to find a new friend for Douglas. We have also started our morning walks looking for birds. This lovely cinnamon hummingbird was a wonderful surprise.

We had a lovely dinner at Simona’s and watched our first sunset of the season. I am sure it will not be our last sunset nor meal at Simona’s!

Yes there is actually a town called Tequila in Mexico. And it is known for making Tequila (surprise surprise!)… We spent a lovely afternoon there enjoying the eating establishments and the tasting shops. We had a nice lunch with a lovely view of the main church of the town. We enjoyed watching the numerous pigeons flying by.

We stayed at Hotel la Reinda Mission Tequellan that was in a great location. Unfortunately the wifi in the room was not very good so Richard had to spend his computer time in the lobby surrounded by Tequila! But no one offered him a sample…

We really enjoyed the Museo del Tequila which showed how tequila was made and the most significant brands in the area. We wondered if these barrels were still full!

We enjoyed our best margarita ever in Tequila so we must go back soon to try more brands…

We have settled into a routine; taking a walk usually in the mornings and then going out for lunch. We decided we wanted to go to the Grand Bay once a week to do a walk. We have not seen as many birds as in past years, we are not sure if it is because we are here earlier than usual or if the numbers are truly declining. We were happy to see several groove-billed anis and I got a great picture of one.

We were happy to see that Candace and Norman had arrived back on their boat Kyalami at the marina. As we visited we were entertained by a pair of boxfish. After Richard and I walked over to the Pacific side we met at Sea Masters in Barra de Navidad for a lovely lunch.

Today was market day in Melaque. We went to buy a few things including legumes (chick peas, lentils). We were surprised to see a parrot on the overhead power lines. It has been suggested that the parrot had escaped from a nearby cage. But it was great to see a free one!